Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Eradication of Feudalism in Pakistan

Feudalism' in Pakistan Ronald J Herring It is possible to identify social formations and relations in Pakistan's agrarian sector historically which fall near the 'feudal' end of a spectrum of agrarian societies. Such formations and relations have presented persistent problems to ruling elites seeking the consolidation of a modern bourgeois economy and centralised State. Land reforms and other measures in the Bhutto period did not seek to eradicate the 'feudals', as in a classic bourgeois revolution, nor abdicate power to them, as in 'indirect rule' or some forms of patron-client political systems, but rather sought selective accommodation and transformation to facilitate concentration of political power and rationalisation of the agricultural economy, The significant limitations apparent in the attack on feudalism must be understood in terms of the strategic and tactical imperatives operative during the period of Bhutto's rule.